


Inner Child

by quantumducky



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Gen, Lullabies, Mild Hurt/Comfort, aka kinda a mix of both?, this is a no angst zone. soft things only
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: Everyone knows Patton as the dad, even if he does act silly and childish sometimes.  What they don't realize is that he has another aspect he's been keeping hidden from them: sometimes, he's also a literal child.  When the other sides eventually find out about this, a little reassurance and a lot of cuteness ensues.(Or: I came up with a plausible excuse to write Patton as a cute little kid without having to use a human AU and I'm gonna run with it.)Note: Each chapter of this fic will be a different short oneshot, not necessarily in any kind of order, and the tags will be updated with each new chapter.





	1. Discovery

Patton was having a very long day.  Since that morning, the sides had been having one of their discussions, and he’d been trying his best to keep up his “dad” persona and help Thomas do the right thing- even though it was giving him a terrible headache.  He knew what that meant. As soon as they took a break for lunch, he said something about being tired- he couldn’t even remember exactly what- and escaped to his room, crawling into bed immediately. Did he lock the door?  He must have, he always did. Someone would come knocking soon enough, and he’d have to pull himself together again, but he just needed to let go for a while. He burrowed under his blankets- so he wouldn’t be visible, just in case- and let himself change from the dad he always presented himself as, to the other version of himself no one knew about: Thomas’s “inner child.”  The pressure in his head finally subsided. Patton curled up in a ball, clutching his favorite stuffed dog to his chest, and closed his eyes for a much-needed nap.

 

* * *

 

When Patton didn’t come back after lunch, everyone was a little worried.

“Do you think he’s sick?”  Virgil tugged on his hoodie strings and looked over his shoulder at the stairs, as if Patton would appear one of these times if he just kept checking.  “I mean, he didn’t look too good earlier.”

“I suspect he merely failed to pay attention to the time, as usual,” said Logan.  “One of us should go remind him to come back.” He looked around, taking in the lack of volunteers.  Virgil was unwilling to get up now that he was sitting in his spot, while Roman was preoccupied with whatever he was gesturing about to Thomas.  “…And it seems that’s going to be me.”

Logan took a step back and sank out, reappearing in the imaginary version of the living room.  He went upstairs, where all their rooms were located, and knocked on Patton’s door. “Patton? It’s time to return to the real world.  …Patton?” Why wasn’t he answering? Logan tried the door and, finding it unlocked, pushed it open.

Ah.  Evidently he hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he was tired.  Judging by the shape under Patton’s blankets, he had come up here and fallen asleep.  Logan was always telling him to set alarms in these situations, and he never seemed to remember.  At least this time he’d left the door unlocked so they could wake him up. Logan walked over and shook him awake, not unkindly.  “Patton, it’s time to get up.”

Patton just whined and curled up tighter under the covers, making no move to get up.  All Logan could even see of him was a bit of his hair.

He sighed and went to move the blankets so he’d at least look at him.  “You can’t stay in bed, it’s the middle of the day. Honestly, you’re behaving like-”

Logan looked down and blinked.

“Oh.”

Logan may not have entirely  _ understood _ Patton, and wouldn’t call himself an expert by any means, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t normal for the moral side to look like he was about three years old.

The… small version of Patton, wearing his adult-sized cat hoodie like it was a dress, sat up without opening his eyes, still whining under his breath.  He yawned, rubbing his face with a tiny fist, and finally looked up and realized Logan was there. They both froze. Patton’s eyes widened, then quickly filled with tears before he grabbed the blankets and yanked them over his head again.  Logan could hear him crying. This situation was  _ far _ out of his ability to resolve alone, or even understand.  He returned to the living room and grabbed Roman and Virgil, pulling them with him before anyone could ask questions.

 

* * *

 

Patton shook as he hid under his blankets, clutching his dog.   _ Logan found him. _  And he went to get the others, and they were gonna find out too, and everyone was gonna be mad at him, and they’d never listen to him- well, even less than they already did- and-!

A hand touched his shoulder, making him jump.  Someone sat on the bed next to him.

“Hey, uh, Pat?  You in there?”

“…No.”

The blankets were pulled back slowly.  Patton tried to hide his face.

“Hey, I don’t know what happened here, but it’s… I’m here… for you?”  Virgil really did not know what he was doing, but he trusted himself slightly more than either of the others, so here he was.  He put a hand on Patton’s back hesitantly, and tried to coax him to look up. Patton finally peeked at him, and a second later, Virgil had a crying kid in his arms, clinging to his shirt.  He patted him awkwardly. “Just… try to calm down, alright?

It took a good few minutes, but Virgil was able to calm him down.  No one was more surprised by this than Virgil himself. Patton was now sitting on his lap quietly, chewing on his own sleeve.  They’d found his glasses for him, although they looked a bit ridiculous on his little face. At least he could see.

“Would you like to explain what caused this now?” Logan prompted.

“I  _ swear _ it isn’t my fault,” Roman insisted in a whisper.  That was the argument they’d been having out in the hall while Virgil worked on getting Patton to stop crying.

Patton shook his head no, leaning further into Virgil.  “Don’ wanna. You’ll be mad…”

Virgil ruffled his hair and got him to look up again.  “I promise we won’t, Pat, but you gotta tell us so we can help.”

“It- it wasn’- nothin’ happened,” Patton mumbled, looking down.  “M’just not big sometimes.” He pulled his knees up as if to shield himself from their reaction.  “I- I tried not to… but it hurt…”

Virgil hugged him tightly.  “It’s okay, Pat… just- it’s normal?  Nothing is wrong?”

He nodded.

“Thank goodness,” Roman breathed.  He gravitated over to the bed and sat down next to Virgil, now that he didn’t need to worry, watching Patton in slight awe.

Logan sighed in relief as well.  “I assume you’ll return to your normal state soon enough, then.  In the meantime… what do you normally do when this happens?”

Patton shrugged.  “Hide,” he admitted in a small voice.

“Well, that won’t do!”  Roman took him from Virgil carefully, then scooped him up, standing with Patton in his arms.  “Come on, little one, we’re going to find a snack and something fun to do.” Patton was startled at first by the sudden transition, but he grabbed onto Roman’s sash and looked up at him, finally smiling.

“Cookies?”  He always wanted cookies when he was little, but it was hard to go downstairs for them without being seen.

“Of course!  Anything you want!”

“Please don’t tell me you’re actually going to give a small child whatever he asks for,” Logan called, hurrying to follow as they left the room.  “Patton, we’ve talked about this, you can’t live off nothing but cookies-”

“I think he knows that, L.”  Virgil caught up on the way down the stairs.  “But, uh… what are we gonna tell Thomas?”

“Right.”  Logan cleared his throat.  “I’ll inform him that Patton… doesn’t feel well enough to return.  We can finish our discussion another time.”

He sank out to find Thomas in the real world, while Virgil joined Roman and Patton in the kitchen.  Roman had taken to the idea of caring for little Patton until he went back to normal surprisingly fast, and was currently dancing around the kitchen with a giggling moral side on his hip, who was getting cookie crumbs all over both their shirts.  This discovery had been unexpected, for sure, but even Virgil had to admit it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.


	2. School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan attempts to teach little Patton the alphabet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in celebration of being done with my first year of college i bring you platonic logicality cuteness

With a bit of observation, Logan had figured out that Patton’s knowledge as an adult didn’t necessarily carry over to his child form.  The smaller version of Patton apparently held many incorrect beliefs, such as his conviction that wind was caused by the movement of trees rather than the other way around, and frequently had trouble distinguishing the imaginary things Roman created in his room from reality.  It made Logan’s job harder and often left Thomas confused. So, the next time Patton became a child, he suggested the idea of school. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if anything he taught him would stick, but Patton seemed to remember other things from previous times he’d changed, so why not this?

When Logan brought it up, Patton paused mid-contemplation of whether to put an orange crayon in his mouth (they’d never tasted good before, but you never knew, right?) and looked up at him, head tilted.  “School?” he repeated, trying to get the “k” sound right and almost succeeding. “What’s that?”

Logan paused.  He’d learned by now that his usual mode of speaking would only confuse Patton right now… and, to be honest, half the time when he was an adult as well.  “It’s where you go to learn things from a teacher- someone who knows a lot and can explain it to you.”

“Oh!  Like you!”

“Exactly.”  He smiled. “Would you like me to teach you, Patton?”

Patton dropped the crayon on the floor with its fellows and stood up.  “Yeah!” He reached up for Logan’s hand and followed him down the hall, where Logan had turned his own room into a classroom.  Even though Patton was his only student, the room was filled with rows of desks, and there was a teacher’s desk and blackboard at the front of the room.  Patton looked around with interest at the learning-related posters on the walls as Logan led him up to the front row to sit down.

“Okay, class!”

Patton giggled.  “It’s just me, silly.”

“Today,” Logan continued, “we’re going to start learning about the alphabet.”

“Why?”

“Because if you know about letters, you’ll be able to learn to read.”

He considered this.  “Okay.”

Logan nodded and turned to the board, beginning to write the first few letters.  When he was done, he conjured a pad of lined paper and set it in front of Patton.  “Now, follow along with me, okay? When I write the letters this time, you try to write them too.”  

Patton nodded, grabbing one of his crayons from the air- Logan had to admit, he wasn’t sure the child was ready for pencils at this age.  Too difficult to hold, and too sharp.

“Alright, let’s begin.  This,” he said, “is the letter A.  It’s the first letter of the alphabet.”  He watched Patton laboriously copy it down along with him, and smiled.  “Good job, Patton! Some words you might know that start with A are _apple_ and _airplane.”_  He wrote those, too, and circled the first letter.  “You don’t have to copy these, don’t worry.”

He looked very relieved.

“Now, the second letter is B.”  They made it through that letter with minimal buzzing noises and attempts to run around the room pretending to fly, then C for _cat_ and D for _dog._  By the time they reached F it had been nearly half an hour, and Patton was whining about having to stay in the desk and write letters when he wanted to be playing, so Logan decided to call it a day.

“Class is now over for today,” he announced, erasing what was on the board before going to meet Patton as he bounced out of his seat.  “You did a good job of paying attention today, Patton, thank you.”

He beamed proudly, and held his paper out, crumpling the corner he was holding it by in his excitement to show it off.  “Lo, look!”

Logan took the paper, and was torn between smiling and groaning when he saw what was on it.  After his C, which had started out as a simple letter before gaining triangular ears, whiskers and a tail, Patton had quickly devolved into doodles.  On the one hand, it was frustrating to find out he’d taught the other three letters for no reason, although at least he knew for the future that Patton’s attention span in this form wasn’t as long as he’d hoped.  

On the other hand, though… he couldn’t help but notice that, in place of the letter F, there was a crude drawing of two people holding hands, which he could only assume was the result of Logan informing him F was the first letter of the words _friend_ and _family,_ among others.  He also couldn’t help but notice that one of the stick figures in question was much smaller than the other, and the larger one looked a lot like him.  …Well, as much like him as he could expect from a child Patton’s age, anyway.

He placed the paper carefully on his desk.  “Well done. I’ll be keeping this in order to… have a record of your learning.”

Patton looked a little disappointed at the loss of his paper, but shrugged and quickly brightened again.  “Okay… My turn now!”

Logan blinked.  “Pardon?”

“My turn!” Patton repeated.  He grabbed Logan’s hand and dragged him over to the desk he’d just been sitting in, shoving him in its general direction until he sat down.  Logan folded himself awkwardly into a chair meant for a much smaller person with much shorter legs. “Gonna teach you!”

Logan supposed this was only fair, after he’d made Patton sit and listen to him for so long.  He summoned a notebook and pencil and tried to look attentive.

Struggling to reach the blackboard at all, Patton managed to draw a shapeless scribble.  “S’a cloud,” he explained. “Lo, know why… um… you, uh- why clouds’re up high?”

“No, I don’t,” said Logan, who did.  “Why is that?”

“Airplanes!”  He pointed to the word, still half-visible from Logan’s lesson, and burst into giggles.

Logan sighed internally, holding himself back with great effort from correcting him with the actual reason.  This was going to be a long… well, however long it took Patton to run out of his child-self’s idea of “jokes.”

He glanced over at the paper on the teacher’s desk.  Still- worth it.


	3. Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil has some trouble getting Patton to fall asleep.

Virgil leaned back in the rocking-chair, exhaling slowly. It was late, and he very badly wanted Patton to be asleep. The other sides also wanted Patton to be asleep. At this point, he was pretty sure even Patton himself wanted Patton to be asleep, and yet here they were.

Patton started squirming again, twisting around in his arms, and Virgil kind of wanted to scream.

“Pat, I _promise,_ if you just _stop moving for five minutes_ you will go to sleep. _Please.”_

“Can’t,” he whined indistinctly, chewing on the ear of his stuffed dog. “Not tired.”

“Yes you are.”

“Mm, but ‘s _boring.”_

“Closing your eyes and not moving is boring?”

“Mhm.”

“You can… you can imagine stuff to make it less boring. That’s what Roman does. Don’t you wanna be like Roman?” Virgil tried.

“But I talk and you get mad.”

That was… kind of true. Patton wasn’t very good at keeping his thoughts inside his head under _normal_ circumstances, much less as a small, tired child. “Hey, I don’t get _mad._ I just tell you to stop.”

Patton shrugged.

“Can you just try, anyway?”

The desperation Virgil was feeling at this point must’ve leaked into his tone, because Patton heaved a sigh too big for his body and mumbled, “Okay.” He leaned his head on Virgil’s chest, hugged his dog, and closed his eyes. Virgil rubbed his back a bit, hoping it would help.

It lasted about forty-five seconds.

“Viiiiiirge,” Patton whined, beginning to sound pretty miserable himself. “Why can’t I _sleep?”_

Virgil closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “I don’t know, Pat. Are you missing anything that you normally have when you go to sleep?” Getting Patton to bed wasn’t normally his job- Roman was better at bedtime stories, and Logan, if nothing else, could bore the kid to sleep. In fact, Virgil was afraid it might be _him,_ not anything else- just the pure fact that he, Literal Anxiety, was in the room.

Patton was quiet for a while. “Um…”

“Yeah?”

“You won’t wanna…”

“Try me, bud.” He was pretty sure he’d do _anything_ at this point.

“Ro sings for me,” he half-whispered. “T’make it unboring.”

“Do you want me to sing for you?”

He was still clearly unsure if Virgil was willing to do such a thing. “Don’ have to…”

“Yeah, no, I think you need it.”

He pressed his face against Virgil’s shirt instead of responding. Virgil took that as agreement.

“Okay, here goes, uh…”

He cast about for an appropriate song. Somewhere, there had to be an intersection in the Venn diagram of “songs he knew all the words to” and “songs whose lyrics were okay for a small Patton to hear.” Ah, there it was, he knew he had something- _very_ appropriate, actually.

“You are my sunshine,” Virgil sang softly, “my only sunshine…” He held Patton close as he continued, rubbing his back again in time with the song. The poor kid must have been really tired. Before the end of the first verse, his eyes had closed, and he was almost limp against Virgil’s chest.

“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you… please don’t take my sunshine away…” Virgil hoped he could be done with it there, and put _himself_ to bed. As soon as he sang that line, though, Patton raised his head a bit, trying to blink his eyes open. Virgil held in a groan.

“M’not goin’ ‘way,” mumbled the little ray of sunshine in question. “Don’ w’ry.”

His heart absolutely melted. “I know, Pat,” he managed to say. “I know you’re not going anywhere, it’s just the song. Go back to sleep, okay?”

“Mhm. Jus’ wan’d you t’know…” He trailed off, letting his eyes fall shut once more as he cuddled into his best friend.

It looked like he was actually asleep this time, thank goodness. Virgil leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes as well, wrapping his arms more firmly around Patton so he wouldn’t fall from his lap. No way was he going to risk waking the kid up again if he tried to move him to his bed. Besides, this chair was pretty comfortable, in comparison to some other places he’d passed out in over the years. The top shelf of the linen closet came to mind. Here, on the other hand, he had the calming ambiance of Patton’s room, plus the cozy warmth of a fluffy blanket draped over them both, not to mention peace of mind knowing Patton was right here, with him, and didn’t need to be worried about until he woke up again. Heck, he might actually sleep better here than in his own bed. He just… hoped he would be able to get out of this rather embarrassing position before the others came in to get Patton for breakfast.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> if you have any suggestions/prompts for future chapters, please tell me in a comment!


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